KITCHEN GARDEN Alex Welcome to Julia’s memorial. Here we tell you how a working kitchen garden became an ornamental garden. Anthony These walled gardens were built in the 1760s to support the new classical house. Alex As kitchen gardens, they would have supplied fruit and vegetables for the entire estate.AlexIn the 19th Century they became leisure gardens. There was even a tennis court. IRELAND’S VESUVIUS AnthonyBronze statues of ball throwers stand in the middle of both lawns. They are copies of ones found at Herculaneum in Italy. Alex Wasn’t that a Roman town buried when Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD? Sarah Indeed. You can see how the Sugarloaf Mountain in the background could pass for Vesuvius in the romantic Victorian imagination.Thanks to the distinctive profile of the Sugarloaf, local town Killiney is often compared to the Bay of Naples. JULIA’S MEMORIAL Anthony The memorial wall behind the pond honours Julia, the beloved widow of Mervyn Wingfield. Mervyn was my great great grandfather and the 7th Lord Powerscourt. Alex He was the visionary who completely transformed these gardens in the second half of the 19th century. Anthony This memorial features busts of the four great Italian masters of art; Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Raphael, and Cellini.This tribute to Julia was designed by her son in 1931. Sarah Dorothy Rowley would be delighted. 200 years after marrying into the Wingfields, her descendants were continuing her dream of recreating Italy in Wicklow.